


Annabelle and the Crows

by sevenofspade



Category: The Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera - Shapera
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:57:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annabelle McAlistair was raising up the dead. The crows did not approve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Annabelle and the Crows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lostinthefire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinthefire/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this!

"New Albion," Gibbeuse said.

"Yeah," Nouvelle said. "I heard about that crap. Dead up and about, 'sup with that?"

Gibbeuse flapped her wings. "It's the McAlistair girl."

"Aw hell," Nouvelle said. "The bleeding McAlistairs. I told ya we never should have let --"

"Seriously? Shut up, Nouvelle, you sound like a bloody magpie," Gibbeuse said, because she did. Nouvelle just never knew when to shut up; that was a magpie trait, not a crow one.

Nouvelle made a face at Gibbeuse. Gibbeuse ignored her, preferring to focus on how to solve the McAlistair problem, current iteration. The Annabelle version of the McAlistair problem -- and Nouvelle was right, they would have to solve the whole thing permanently at some point -- was that the dead were refusing to stay dead. To be precise, Annabelle was refusing for them to stay dead, but that amounted to the same thing. Dead not being dead. Just one, at present, but that sort of happenings never stopped at just one.

"We're gonna haunt her," Gibbeuse said. She flew off in the direction of the McAlistair house.

"Spoken like a raven." Nouvelle caught up. "Wasn't it Croissante that dealt with the Leanor affair? And wasn't she a McAlistair too? I tell you--"

"Nevermore," Gibbeuse said, because Nouvelle seriously just never shut up, did she? Joy.

They found the McAlistair house easily. They found a broken window to get in... slightly less easily, but they found one all the same. Annabelle's not dead dead was, as the name suggested, not dead. Gibbeuse damn near jumped out of her feathers when the bloody thing actually spoke to her. It wasn't idle chatter in her general direction, either. It was talking to her, like it was a person or a prophet.

"Aw, bleeding hell," Nouvelle said. Gibbeuse could only agree (but privately, because there was no use in giving Nouvelle the satisfaction of being right).

Perhaps the dead had been prophet while it lived, for they talked all night and it knew them for crows and what they were. It did not wish for death, but it did not wish for this unlife, either. Patiently, Gibbeuse and Nouvelle -- but mostly Gibbeuse, quite frankly -- devised him an alternative. It was not an easy thing, but then death never is. 

Incentive created, they created a bargain. Bargains, ha! That was a job for magpies. Stood to reason Nouvelle would be good at it. If anyone asks, you did not hear this from Gibbeuse.

(No one will ask.)

The unliving had three days to convince McAlistair to cancel his undeath or else the crows' deal would be off and the McAlistair house would burn and all within, living or dead or everything between. It was a rook's trick, fire in the dark, but three days hence the moon would be new.

After two nights, Annabelle McAlistair was necromancer no longer, there was a new crow that had yet to chose its name.

In light of what came later, they should have burn the house and been well rid of the McAlistairs. But that -- that was later.

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious, Gibbeuse and Nouvelle are named after phases of the moon (in French).


End file.
